FOREST and STREAM, [May $, 1892
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— — — , FOREST AND STREAM, [May $, 1892, •. : Would There be More Fun in the Field in a Day? charr, proposed to call it the Dolly Varden trout. This —One revolution of the earth on its axis is called a day. J^a atfrf fishing. name coming to the ears of Professor Baird, then United A day is divided into twenty-four parts called hours. States Fish Commissioner, pleased his fancy, and he Each hour is divided into sixty minutes, and each minute directed me, who then had the classification of the trout, is divided into sixty seconds. The day is again divided The full texts of the game fish laws of all the States, in the Smithsonian Institution in hand, to continue for this into two equal parts of twelve hours each. This division Territories and British Provinces are given in the BooTt of species the common name of Dolly Varden trout, is arbitrary and productive of no little confusion. It is and so, in the books at least, Dolly Varden trout it is to tlie Game Laws. two days in one day. Various attempts have been made this day." to remedy this defect, but none have succeeded. The Trout Near New York. There are five species of salmon on the west coast, railroads sought to abolish the two tables and make one namely, the quinnat or king, the blue-back or red, the We have secured, for the private information of the readers of of twenty-four hours, regulating all time and time silver, the dog and the humpback. The first averages Fobest and Strram, knowledge of a number of streams and machinery accordingly; but for some reason nothing has 221bs. in weight, and reaches lOOibs. The red fish usually lakes easily accessible from this city, where we believe that good come of it. Perhaps its effect on all chronometers pre- weighs from 5 to Slbs. ; the silver salmon 3 to 81bs. ; the fishing for trout and black bass may be had. The information, vented its introduction. An innovation that would in- dog salmon averages about 131bs., and the humpback munh of which comes from private sources, we are not at liberty validate all the timepieces of the world would not readily (the smallest) weighs but from 3 to 61bs. The king and to print, but we shall be glad to furnish it without charge to any be submitted to. A remedy is near at hand, and perhaps blue-back salmon run in the spring, the others in the reader of Forest and Stream who will apply for it, either per- from its very simplicity has been overlooked . Double the fall. An account of the habits of the fish when in the length of the hour, minute and second, and regulate all sonally or by letter. rivers is given, and the food, spawning and changes in time machinery down to one-half its present velocity. form and color. The great destruction of salmon in the That would meet all difficulties now existing, and increase PACIFIC SALMON AND TROUT.* Columbia River and decrease in the fisheries all along the the value of all chronometers. They would run slower, coast are mentioned. HIGHLY interesting, popular account of the salmon last longer and do better service, and A. M. and P. M. A "Of the American trout," says the Doctor, "the one and trout of the Pacific Coast of the United States, would retire.—Levi S. Klagle (Vinton, la,). which most closely approaches the European Salmo fario from the pen of Dr. D. S. Jordan, has been issued as Bul- is the rainbow trout of California, Salmo irideus,' as, it letin No. 4 by the Board-of Fish Commissioners of Cali- was named some forty years ago by Dr. W. P. Gibbons, Ducks in Fishing Nets, Erie, Pa.—Unluckily, though fornia. This article condenses into 15 octavo vast — pages a of Alameda." No specimens of this trout have been ob- the Pennsylvania game laws protect the ducks along our deal of information of value to anglers and students tained east of the Cascade Range or of the Sierra Nevada. shore of Lake Erie from gunners in the spring, they do generally. It ranges in size from six inches in length to six pounds not keep them out of the gill-nets of the fishermen. Dr. Jordan says: "Of all the families of fishes, the one in weight. Nearly every tug and smack coming in from the nets of most interesting from almost every point of is that view "Another California trout is the so-called steel-head, late have had a goodly number of plump bluebills and of the Salmonidie, the salmon family. It is not one of the more usually known in California as salmon trout, a fish other ducks aboard. The fishermen are not pleased at largest families, comprising less than a hundred species, sufficiently like the salmon trout of Europe, but the name these catches as might be at first expec ted that they but in beauty, activity, gaminess, quality as food, — and steel-head seems to me preferable, because it is given to would be the damage the ducks do to the delicate nets even in size of individuals, different members of the — no other fish." The name is suggested by the color of its is so great. As I have written before, the price the stand easily the first fishes, group with among head and hardness of the skull bones; usual weight in drowned birds bring does not recompense the fishermen Sahnonida> are found in the north temperate and Arctic Columbia River 131bs., maximum 25lbs. (We have seen for the damage they do. Bluebills from the nets are regions, are everywhere almost equally and abundant 321b. fish). The Doctor compares the steel-head and rain- offered on our street market at 15 cents each, and do not wherever suitable waters occur. bow, and finds few and minor differences. "It is not at find purchasers. And when large numbers have been "All Salmonidie feed fish ; the upon the smaller ones all unlikely that the steel-head is simply a rainbow trout shipped East to commission houses, they have almost in- upon worms, insects and small fish; the larger forms on which has descended into the sea and which has grown variably been thrown back the senders' hands. Mal- on fishes and Crustacea—whatever they they can find. larger and coarser, and acquired Rome what different lard. "Naturalists divide Sahnonida into nine genera: Core- form and habits on account of its food and its surround- gonus, the whitefish; Pleeoglossus, Ja little annual fish ings." Our Wild Goat Picture.—The author of the wild which is found in the waters of Japan, born in the spring, Next is the cut-throat trout, Salmo mykiss. "It is the hunting relation (issue of April writes of the illus- rivers in the summer, and dies in follow- goat 7) runs up the the most widely-distributed of all our (west coast) trout, being tration: "Mr. Seward is to be congratulated on his suc- winter, only the young surviving; Brachymystax, ing a found throughout Alaska, Kamtschatka, in all the cess of his photograph. I had good opportunity to observe large and scarcely known salmon-like fish in the waters streams of Washington and Oregon, in the northwestern the goats lying down, feeding and moving about undis- of Siberia: Stenodus, the inconnu, a large, weak-toothed part of California; throughout the rivers of the great turbed; and that the picture is true life, and found in the Mackenzie River; ean say to salmon Thymallus, the basin of Utah, in all the streams on both sides of the the perfect. in grayling: the or surroundings are We have four persons Hucho, Huchen, Rothfisch of the River Rocky Mountains until we come to the desert lands, this place who have hunted the wild goat; and they all Danube, a large, voracious, pike-like salmon, which where the washes of sand make the streams uninhabit- in picture. to little either to naturalists unite praise of the My brother, who hunted seems he known or to able to any trout, and thence extending its range south- the wild goat near Mt. Baker, Wash., had a fine oppor- anglers; Oncorhynchus, the Pacific coast salmon, or ward in the mountains as far as the springs in Chihuahua, tunity to observe some old bucks sitting upon their quinnats; Salmo, the salmon and trout; and Salvelinus, the southernmost point reached by any trout in any red-spotted trout. these haunches, a habit they frequently indulge in when dis- the charr, or Of the various country." The name cut-throat alludes to the crimson turbed unusual in sight. If I this fishes as salmon and trout by anything go West commonly known belong to blotch around the throat. [A better name is red throat], fall, last genera." Dr. then gives shall try to get my camera up in the range and the three Jordan the source It reaches a weight of 25ib3. or more. The largest secure some pictures from life. —E. H." of tbe common names. known specimens occurring in Lake Tahoe and in the Salmo, from salio, to leap. Fario (Forelle of the Ger- salt water of Puget Sound. man), trout of Izaak Walton and all English writers. The Lard as a Concentrator.—"The next time you load The next and last fish is the Dolly Varden. "The finest Latin word Triitta, from which the name trout is any shells," a friend told me, "put about a spoonful of of the trout-like fishes on the Pacific coast, and scarcely derived, was applied to the sea or salmon trout, Salmo melted lard on the shot.